Alabama lawmakers start the second half of the 2024 legislative session this week with major issues pending, including a plan for a lottery and more state-regulated gambling.

The Republican-led Legislature has passed Gov. Kay Ivey’s top priority, a school choice bill that will allow parents to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private school or home school.

Those issues and some others, including new restrictions on absentee voting assistance and efforts to eliminate state-funded programs that promote diversity, were long expected during the first half of the session, but lawmakers had to pivot quickly on a new topic after an Alabama Supreme Court ruling caused in vitro fertilization clinics to pause their operations because of legal liabilities. The Legislature passed a bill intended to allow clinics to resume services to families but leaving important legal questions about IVF unresolved.

Since the session started Feb. 6, the Legislature has used 15 its maximum 30 meeting days. The session can last up to 15 weeks, until May.

Gambling

On Feb. 15, the House passed a proposed amendment to the state constitution to allow voters to decide whether to authorize a lottery, casinos, and legal sports betting.

The Senate followed three weeks later by passing a scaled-back plan, with the lottery but no full-scale casinos or sports betting. Instead of casinos, the Senate plan would allow pari-mutuel betting on dog racing and horse racing via simulcast at the state’s four former greyhound tracks and three other locations. The seven facilities could also offer gambling on computerized machines called historical horse racing that operate similar to slot machines.

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